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December 08, 2007

Aristotle and Hedonism

In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle has two
primary discussions of pleasure: the first at VII.xi-xiv and the second at
X.i-v. The nature of the relationship
between these two discussions and the subsequent debate amongst scholars serves
no purpose here. Thus, what is required
is a brief explanation of Aristotle’s views in both sections.

Aristotle
begins, in VII.xi, by examining three critical views of pleasure. Having just finished his discussion of
continence and incontinence, Aristotle characteristically beings his discussion
of a new topic by examining popular views and conceptions of that topic. The purpose of studying pleasure, he states,
is because:

“The study of pleasure and pain is the task
of the political philosopher, because he is the master craftsman who decides the end which is the standard by
which we call any given thing good or bad
without qualification. Besides, the
examination of pleasure and pain is one of our necessary tasks, because we have established that
moral virtue and vice are concerned with pains and pleasures; and the great majority of people maintain that
happiness involves pleasure (whish is why
the word for ‘blessed’ is derived from a word meaning ‘to rejoice’).”[1]

After stating his purpose, Aristotle delves straight away
into three common criticisms. The three
arguments can be summarized as such: (1) Pleasure is not a good at all, (2) Not
all pleasures are good, and (3) Pleasure is not the supreme good. In response to (1), Aristotle states that
there are two types of good: absolute (objective) and relative
(subjective). A good also can either be
an activity (walking) or a state (contemplation). As such, some pleasures have an opposite pain
or deficiency while other pleasures exist in a natural state containing no
deficiency and as such are pleasurable in relation to the individual and the
situation. Also, Aristotle makes the
claim that pleasure is not a process[2]
but an activity, and thus are an end in themselves. Aristotle prefers to call pleasures ‘an
activity of our natural state’, and ‘unimpeded’. Aristotle continues to state that pleasure,
when in its proper state, cannot hinder any other activity and thought because
proper pleasure actually encourage proper activities and thoughts. Aristotle finally concludes his refutation of
point (1) by stating that pleasure is not a product of any kind of art because
an art never produces an activity. Thus,
in relation to his other refutations, pleasure is not found in certain products
in and of themselves but in relation to the individual and the product. As to argument (2), Aristotle answers this
argument through a synthesis of his replies to (1) and (3). Thus he continues directly from his response to
argument (1) to his response to argument (3) by stating that argument (2) does
not necessarily disprove argument (3)-meaning that, if not all pleasures were
bad, then there is no justification for why pleasure is not the Supreme
Good. He then states that, if the
unimpeded exercise of a faculty is a pleasure, then pleasure must be the
supreme good because the good or virtuous man will exercise his proper
faculties in an unimpeded manner. Thus,
because happiness is perfect, the exercise of an unimpeded faculty is
pleasurable, and an unimpeded activity is perfect, it is reasonable to assume
then that pleasure following perfection is supremely good alongside happiness
(though of course, Aristotle is careful to stress that this must indeed be the
proper exercise of a faculty in order to achieve a proper pleasure). Aristotle then surveys nature, stating that
because all animals and human beings desire pleasure and shun pain, pleasure
must be the supreme good. This leads him
to state that the reason pleasure is commonly understood only in relation to
bodily pleasures is because this type of pleasure is the most common amongst
all humans. Aristotle finishes his
criticism of the three arguments by stating that pleasure must be a good
because the life of the happy man must be pleasant, and the happy life is
good. If the happy man’s life were not
pleasant, then pleasure would not be a good, and the happy life would not be
what everyone seeks.

After
examining the different arguments against pleasure, Aristotle seeks to classify
the different types or kinds of pleasure. Aristotle essentially portrays two major categories of pleasure: bodily
and noble. He then begins to describe
the nature of bodily actions, defending why they are not, as many other
philosophers had said, bad or immoral in and of themselves. Using the principle of opposites, he states
that because the opposite of pleasure is pain, and because pain is bad, it
stands to reason that pleasure then is good. Moreover, the good and moral/virtuous man does not have to worry about
bodily pleasures turning into licentious excess because his habits are good in
such a way that correlationally his pursuit of bodily pleasures will be proper. He continues on to give two major points as
two why bodily pleasures are so desirable. The first is that pleasures drive out pain; the more intense the pain,
the more intense the pleasure. Thus
bodily pleasures act, in once sense remedially to cure pain. Secondly, bodily pleasures being intense,
people pursue these pleasures because of this intensity. If the pleasure is harmless, then Aristotle
does not view this pursuit of intensity as a bad thing. However, if the pleasure entails some sort of
harm, then Aristotle views this pursuit as bad. Thus Aristotle states that licentiousness and viciousness arrive when
people do not have the moral fortitude to properly gain pleasure out of the
proper things, instead substituting pleasure for other sources of enjoyment. Aristotle concludes his discussion of
pleasure in VII.xiv by reiterating the point that pleasures which do not
contain an accompanying pain do not contain or do not admit to excess.

Aristotle
picks back up his discussion of pleasure at X.i, after a lengthy discussion of
friendship, by stating that:

“After this our next task is presumably to discuss
pleasure; for it is generally agreed that pleasure is very closely bound up with human nature; which is
why those who are educating the young keep
them straight by the use of pleasure and pain. It is also thought to be most important for the forming of a virtuous character to like and dislike
the right things; because pleasure and pain permeate
the whole of life, and have a powerful influence upon virtue and the happy
life, since people choose
what is pleasant and avoid what is painful. It would seem most improper, then, to neglect
such important factors, especially since they admit of a great deal of
controversy.”[3]

Akin to VII.xi, Aristotle begins by analyzing different
views of pleasure. The three main
arguments that he analyses are: (1) Pleasure is the Supreme Good, (2) Pleasure
is wholly bad, and (3) Some pleasures are bad. In argument (1), he directly addresses the view of the philosopher
Eudoxus. Similar to what Aristotle
himself previously stated, Eudoxus believed that pleasure is the Supreme Good
because every animal, rational and irrational, is drawn to it and seeks it above
other things, and thus it must be the Supreme Good. Because pleasure, in this view, is not sought
after as a means to something else, but is sought after in and of itself,
pleasure must then be the Supreme Good. To this first point Aristotle seems to be in agreement. However, his disagreement with Eudoxus comes
later on when Eudoxus states that the addition of pleasure to any good thing
makes that thing more desirable. Aristotle states that this views stands in contradiction to the first
statement because, if pleasure added to a good makes the good more desirable,
then pleasure couldn’t be the Supreme Good because the good which was enhanced
by pleasure would be a higher good than pleasure. Aristotle then begins his examination of
argument (2) by calling this argument “nonsense”. If every animal, both rational and
irrational, sought pleasure, Aristotle states that this argument does not make
sense because there is no reason why all animals would strive for the bad. He then goes into a lengthy discussion about
pleasure and degree or processes, defending his view that pleasure is not a
process but an activity (as explained above; he will also, soon, magnify this
distinction). Finally, he examines the
view that some pleasures are bad by stating that those “bad pleasures” are not
even really pleasures at all because what is pleasant to a bad person, who is
not natural, is not the same as what is pleasant to a good person, who is
natural. He continues by reiterating his
point that some pleasures are good in and of themselves, because they do not
have a deficiency, while other pleasures contain a deficiency, and thus must be
handled with caution. Aristotle then
begins a lengthy discussion as to why he believes that pleasure is not a
process (this has been described above). What is most important from this lengthy discussion is that pleasure is
whole or complete. He then relates
pleasure to activity by stating that, in effect, pleasure is the proper
functioning of an activity. Pleasure, if
you will, is the gasoline of a car: the gasoline (pleasure) allows the proper activity
of the car (to drive) to occur. Different than a car, though, is the fact that pleasure does not start
or is not the cause of an activity, but rather is the essence of an activity
which maximizes the potential of that activity. To the question of why people do not constantly feel pleasure, Aristotle
replies with the answer of fatigue. Continued use of anything for a prolonged
period of time fatigues that something due to the large volume of energy
expended, and thus energy must be restored before that something is able to
properly function again. Ultimately,
Aristotle states that pleasure is essential to life because life itself is an
activity, and an activity separated from a pleasure does not function properly
at all-thus life devoid of pleasure is not a properly functioning life. Aristotle concludes his treatment of pleasure
by pointing out the fact that, so as there are many different kinds of
activities, so too are there many different kinds of pleasures. Thus the better pleasures are those that
accompany the better activities. The
result of this, then, is that the good man will live the most pleasant life
because the activities of the good men are the best.

Though
Aristotle has a tendency to fall into complicated digressions, his main view
(if it is possible to synthesize the two treatments of pleasure) is that
pleasure and an activity are so closely related that they could be viewed as
one and the same thing, even though in a certain way they are distinct, and
because life requires activity, and the good life requires good activity, the
good life will necessarily be pleasurable. A very important distinction must be made, though, between Aristotle’s
view of pleasure as the Supreme Good and hedonism, for unlike Aristotle’s view,
hedonism is a malady upon mankind which serves no purpose but the destruction
of those who faithfully adhere to it.

Completely
antithetical to both Stoicism/Christian Asceticism and Aristotelian ethical
theories concerning pleasure is Hedonism. Hedonism, by placing pleasure itself as the Supreme Good, acts as a
cancer upon any ethical framework built up either by tradition, religion,
parentage, or conscious philosophical adoption by invalidating the need for a
framework at all. Akin to pure nihilism,
hedonism has no need for ethical guidelines because the only guideline is the maximization
of bodily pleasures (whereas in nihilism, the guideline isn’t anything at
all). Thus the end, pleasure, is
achieved by pursuing anything which brings about a temporary state of the end;
sex, alcohol, drugs, and food themselves are the substitutes for virtues such
as courage, temperance, magnanimity, or justice. This is due to the fact that, since virtues
are the means by which humans mold and guide their lives so that they might
achieve their end goal (the good and happy life), no form of molding is needed
by the hedonist because the supreme end is almost immediately achievable. Epistemologically speaking, sensation and
perception replace reason as primary epistemological tools, sensation and
perception being directly correlative to taste and touch (what Aristotle views
as inferior sense due to their reliance upon something else, or contact-sight,
to Aristotle, requires nothing but the opening of the eyes to actualize the
sense, whereas taste and touch require a foreign entity in order to actualize
them). Reason and more intellectual
pleasures are shunned in favor of bodily pleasures. In discussing temperance at III.xi-xii,
Aristotle explains how the licentious man pursues bodily pleasures as opposed
to intellectual pleasures because these bodily pleasures are readily available
(especially amongst opulent societies) and plentiful. Thus the hedonist approaches and evaluates
the world not based upon reason, but based upon animalistic or brutish scales
of pleasure-maximization/pain-minimization[4]. Reason then is almost viewed as an enemy, it
being the “agent of destruction” which, combined with the inner-voice of
traditional morality (a person’s conscious), seeks to destroy hedonism by
returning the individual to more normal levels.

Even proper
states or conceptions of pleasure are destroyed by hedonism, being replaced by
range-of-the-moment, whim-based pursuits. In effect, the intellectual is shunned in favor of the physical. To obtain pleasure via the hedonistic virtue
of sex, notions of love or meaning (intellectual pursuits) are thrown out in
favor of physical pursuits; the aim in the encounter being which partner (or
partners) can maximize the amount of pleasure gained. Repetitive encounters with the same pleasure
results in diminishing returns, thus making it necessary for the hedonist to
seek even greater and more lavish instances of an encounter in order to reach
the same level of pleasure as had been previously gained. Thus what once was one sexual partner a month
turns into one sexual partner a week; even then, as the pleasure returns from
this repetition become diminished, an even larger number of encounters are
sought. Eventually, a point will be
reached where norm itself is not sufficient (traditional sexual encounters),
and thus a new or more obscure encounter is sought (sexual fetishes). This degeneration is not peculiar to sex; in
the same way, the glutton increases their normal food intake to the point to
where even normal food is insufficient, and thus for different or more rare
types of food (eating McDonald’s everyday turns into eating McDonald’s
everyday, plus a bag of cookies). Hedonism
in this way even works to destroy itself because what once was required to
obtain the appropriate level of pleasure is now insufficient to meet the
ever-expanding demands of the hedonistic drive. A more proper definition of hedonism might thus be a degenerative motion
towards ever-expanding physical pleasures achieved through the sacrifice of the
mind to the body.

The effects
of hedonism, of course, are first shown physically as the body is the first
area of attack by the cancer. Physical
effects of hedonism commonly include such modern day pandemics as obesity and
STD’s, though with prolonged continuation, more immediate and serious physical
maladies such as liver failure occur[5]. However, as these bodily encounters transform
from occasional binge encounters into ingrained habits, the cancer of hedonism
begins to spread from the body to the soul or the mind. In regards to sex, the actual meaning of sex
itself is destroyed. As a consequence,
the sexual hedonist finds himself increasingly unable to have meaningful or
long-lasting romantic relationships as he is unable to grasp the principles
behind sex and love, instead being able to only view the relationships through
the lens of sexual gratification. Other
important activities to a romantic relationship, such as deep conversations,
cuddling, or spending quality time with one another are viewed as impediments
to the actualization of the goal. Where
the romantic partner might try and engage in a romantic evening by having a
quiet dinner, a glass of wine, and lighting some candles while listening to
soft jazz music being played in the background, the hedonist will (not being
able to appreciate these details or the higher meaning behind them) become
antsy and bored, trying to rush through the “mundane” in order to “get to the
good stuff”. Similarly, the hedonist of
alcohol tends to ignore drinks of lower alcohol content or more flavorful,
expensive drinks in favor of cheaper, more pure alcoholic beverages (the shot
of course being a favorite; short and simple, the alcoholic content of one beer
is consumed in less than five seconds). Drunkenness is elevated onto a platform, especially when hedonists
socialize their “virtues”, creating an arena of competition amongst one another
to see who can become the most intoxicated (or who can sleep with the most
number of people, in the case of the sexual hedonist). Due to the establishment of these habits
within the psyche, the hedonist begins a perilous spiral, racing down the track
away from the depression and loneliness within at ever increasing speeds blindly
towards the perceived saving grace of greater pleasure.

The
depression comes about due to the fact that the hedonist never actually
achieves anything of value. Since man was endowed by nature with a basic
blueprint for proper functioning, though of course volition allows him to
discover and follow this blueprint or not, the abdication of this blueprint
results in a contradiction between what is and what ought to be, a sort of
inner turmoil (the degree to which this turmoil takes place within other
systems which, though they do not fully follow nature’s blueprint, maintain a
basic level of happiness and success within their life is achieved incidentally
to the degree in which the system’s virtues correspond to those set forth by
nature). Using modern psychological
terms, the hedonist at this point almost gives off the impression of being bipolar
due to the rapid fluctuation of emotional/mental states. Having no higher moral basis or intellectual
understanding, the hedonist is a slave to whim. Due to the fact that bodily pleasures requires almost no need for
teleology, the Supreme Good as bodily pleasure inhibits the growth and
development of the psyche, brutishly focusing on the moment-to-moment struggle
for gratification. Thus, not only does
hedonism replace epistemology and ethics, but it destroys the very framework upon
which such a system could be built. Popular hedonists phrases such as, “Live in the moment” and “Live from
day to day” exemplify this teleological suicide. Where Christianity places ethics as the ladder
to God and Aristotelianism places ethics as the ladder to happiness (each ring of the ladder corresponding to a
virtue-though of course, I am not implying that all virtues are equally hierarchical),
hedonism does away with the ladder all together, rashly claiming that the end
(pleasure) can be found instantly. To
the hedonist, the concept of enduring through a trial to achieve better results
in the future does not exist because the hedonist has no concept of future. This explains the historical inverse
relationship between higher degrees of hedonism and lower production yields or
shorter work schedules; the hedonist does not want to work! The problem with the abandonment of teleology
all together is that, when the hedonist reaches a stage where he wishes to rise
out of his own cesspool, he timidly looks at the ladder of another system,
vaguely and childishly attempting to climb seldom tread ground or forgetting
how to tread it all together. Thus
hedonism entails another danger in that the act of getting out of it is a
painful and arduous task. Indeed, unless
a Supreme Good has ingrained itself within this individuals mind, allowing them
to draw upon the minute yet ever-increasing pleasure gained from striving for
said Good, it is very typical that the hedonist either falls back into hedonism
or slides into a state of deep depression and turmoil.

Very
typically, hedonism is not an isolated case within an individual, but exists or
comes about in a larger social sphere. In many cases, the hedonist and his
friends or social groups resemble a symbiotic mutualism or commensalism. Friendship takes on a new sense as hedonistic
individuals aid one another in their quest for ever-greater feats of
pleasure. Once traditional acts of
friendship, such as bonding time, are redefined in relation to pure
pleasure. Though a group of friends
might drink such an excessive amount of alcohol that they do not specifically
remember what happened or what was said, the event was considered a successful
time of bonding (and thus they feel closer to one another) due to the fact that
validation (in and of itself a form of pleasure) is received from the other
hedonist. This occurrence can even cross
over into sibling relationships, where what once was considered bonding between
siblings (such as playing a board game, swimming, or drinking coffee and
talking late into the night) is transformed into similar hedonistic activities
as friends. Indeed, this can even cause
strain or damage relationships between a hedonistic sibling or friend and a
non-hedonistic sibling or friend due to the hedonistic sibling or friend
believing that the non-hedonistic sibling or friend has no desire to bond, and
to the non-hedonistic sibling or friend despairing the physical and psychic
demise of their loved one. Social
stratification then occurs between the hedonist and non-hedonist, possibly
explaining the existence of “red-light districts” within larger, wealthier
cities; hedonists prefer to associate with other hedonists and tend to despise
non-hedonists.

When one
then takes a larger look at the world as a whole, it is apparent that hedonism
is more prevalent amongst wealthy and opulent nations or societies, or the
wealthy in a nation, than more poor or middle classed nations or people. This is due to the fact that in order to be
hedonistic, enough “material” must exist with which the hedonist can
indulge. More poor (and even middle
class) individuals within a society, or more poor (and middle class) societies
themselves occupy a predominant amount of time pursuing the basic requirements
of life, leaving very little time to form hedonistic habits and
lifestyles. The man who works all day to
provide enough to feed his family for that day does not have the time or
resources to then indulge himself on the finer things of life. Wealthy nations or individuals, on the other
hand, have the resources available to “buy” time and materials. While this is not in and of itself bad, and
in many cases it can be a very good thing, the problem lies when the wealthy or
opulent individual or society does not have the moral framework to withstand
the flashy appeal of hedonism. For
indeed, few individuals will deny that if given the choice between a nice cake or
a stick of celery, the celery will appear more pleasing. Thus the individual who can afford to buy a scrumptious
cake will have little reason not to do so. This brings about a very interesting
dilemma: due to the fact that a wealthier society is in ways better for the
individual (in terms of abundant food supplies, exceptional health care,
technology to allow time for loftier pursuits, etc.) and in ways worse, as has
been previously described, it stands to reason then that as the wealth or opulence
of an individual or society increases, so too must the strength of and
adherence to a proper moral system. This
is historically proven by the fact that the fall of some of the greatest
empires or societies in the world, from Egypt to Greece, Rome to Venice, France
to Victorian England, all witnessed at the moment before their fall an
abdication of traditional moral standards or ways of living in favor of
hedonism, brought about by the opulence of said societies.

In
summation then, it can be said that hedonism infects all major branches of
philosophy. In metaphysics, hedonism
replaces God or reality with delusional worldliness; in epistemology, reason or
faith is replaced by pure sensation or perception; in ethics, a moral code or
teleology is replaced by whim-worship; and in politics (or social ethics),
friendships or proper relationships based upon the good or some value are
replaced by hedonistic parties of indulgence. If not cured, hedonism in fact will eventually destroy any philosophy at
all within an individual, making the adoption of a new philosophy seemingly
impossible. The ultimate question, then,
is what philosophy is best suited to prevent or cure hedonism?

Many different
philosophies have tried to offer their cure for hedonism. The problem with most philosophies, however,
is that their solution to hedonism is to move to the opposite extreme: asceticism
or stoicism of some degree. In these
philosophies, the individual tends to view the body or world as evil, and thus
pleasure as evil. Abstinence from
pleasure, or at least the minimalization of pleasure, is the best course of
action because it separates the individual from the source of corruption. The problem with these philosophies is that,
by going to the opposite extreme, two important things are left out. First, though Aristotle in Book II stated
that it is good to shoot for the opposite extreme so that we may properly land
in the mean, in actuality shooting to the opposite extreme usually also misses
the mark. In addition, by glorifying the
opposite extreme, the individual who was not a hedonist tends to fall more
easily into hedonism through his natural curiosity at pleasure and thus, being
sheltered from it, this individual has no concept of how to properly deal with
this pleasure. Secondly, as Aristotle
states in Book VII and especially in Book X, pleasure is actually a good
thing-it makes life worth living!

The proper
alternative, or cure, is then clear. The
proper way to both treat an individual who is a hedonist or to prevent other
individuals from becoming hedonist is to adopt the Aristotelian ethical system,
especially in regards to Aristotle’s views of pleasure. The individual who properly adopts Aristotle’s
ethics will live such a good (moral) life that the “bad” pleasures are not
actually pleasures to them, and thus the pleasures that are not bad are
relished as an essential aspect to the enjoyment of life. This transformation not only applies to the
noble or intellectual pleasures, but also to the bodily pleasures as well; the
man of proper virtue will properly engage in and enjoy alcohol, food, and sex. Thus his life will not display any of the
repressive curiosities of asceticism, or the destructive consequences of
hedonism, but rather-by properly combining both to reach the mean, lead to a
life where both happiness and pleasure coexist in harmony.

[2] To
Aristotle, a process is a type of change which spans a duration of time,
changes from something to something else, ie. a it has a starting point and a
finishing point, and thus due to the change, the process is never complete in
one moment of time but is only complete when finished. An activity, on the other hand, is always
complete at any selected moment in time because it has neither a starting nor a
finishing point, and it does not require any stretch of time. See Metaphysics Θ.6,1048b18-23.

[4] It is
worth noting here that very rarely does a person become fully hedonistic, and
thus the degree to which they are hedonistic
is the degree to which they shun or abandon reason. Similarly, the degree to which the person
becomes hedonistic is the degree to which they shun or abandon traditional
morality. Very often this process of
degeneration takes a considerable amount of time and is usually found within
older hedonist. Many people will delve a
certain level into hedonism before returning to a normal state due to the
strong influence or pull of their traditional morality. Aristotle states that this is especially true
within children or youth, who being “young and lusty” will reach levels
comparable to a hedonist, yet as they mature grow out of these levels.

[5] These
physical problems of course can exist within individuals who are not
hedonistic. However, these maladies are more
common to or prevalent amongst hedonists due to the excessive exposure of the
hedonist to the items or states within which these maladies occur (excessive
eating, sex, and drinking).